I can’t look at anyone’s handbag the same way again. My friend Emma has developed this theory – correctly, I might add – that you can judge almost everything about a British woman by the bag she carries. You know how you think you know someone after scrolling through their Instagram for three hours straight?
Forget that – look at her bag instead. Emma first told me this on a weekday morning while waiting in line at some artisanal coffee place in Shoreditch. Well, Shoreditch it was when we lived there; probably Hackney now.
Bless. She leaned over towards this woman next to us holding her gigantic tan Michael Kors bag with all the bells and chains that jingled when she took a step. “Give you a tenner she’s from Surrey, drives a Saab, has two kids named after the Queen’s corgis, and her husband works in ‘Change Securities,” Emma hissed in my ear.
I scoffed because, tbh, I thought she was ridiculous.
But then the woman took out her phone to check her Instagram notifications and literally said, “Put the kettle on love, I’ll just pick George up after Tara’s dance class.” Oh. Myemma. We finished our coffee in silence. (I know, shameful.) But after that, I found myself judging literally everyone by their bags – traipsing around fashion shows and purposefully crowding around the exit of Pret like some sideline gumshoe.
And I was right, Emma was right. So very right. Let’s break down the London woman through the lens of her bag: The Mulberry Bayswater woman.
There are way too many of these women for my liking, but you know them. She purchased her Bayswater circa–2010, during the glory years, spent at least a third of her monthly salary on it, and has spent years stretching out the leather with conditioning cream like it’s some antique Aston Martin. She is probably now in her mid-to-late thirties, worked in a serious city job pre-kids, transitioned to part-time work while hiring a nursery near her house that all the moms rave about, and spends every waking hour outside of the office taking her children on manic, educational trips to museums andFarmdrop.
Lives in South West London. Drives a Volvo. The bag is either black, tan, or that mustard-y red Mulberry color.
She dips her toe into more trendy styles but always comes back to her Bayswater; it’s her security blanket. The micro bag woman. I have mixed feelings about this woman, TBH.
Why do you even need a bag that doesn’t fit your phone? Is this practical? My theory is, she’s either 23 and works in media, attending brunch meetings with clients in artisanal coffee shops (you know the type), or she is 35 and works in fashion and has mastered a level of emptiness I will never understand.
She will also 100% turn up to drop off her children at school in leggings and an oversized sweatshirt while I am still forced to wear a goddamn bra. The micro bag presents an image of effortless chic that is actually the complete antithesis. There is nowhere to put your keys.
Your phone definitely won’t fit. You have no option but to keep your wallet in your pocket, making you extremely vulnerable to pickpocket thieves. Whenever I go about my day sans bag, I feel anxious.
My keys are always in my jeans pocket, leaving thumb prints everywhere I go. I have no lip balm. Or outlet to charge my phone if it’s on 5%.
I know this because I got a mini bag last summer and spent an entire week leaving my debit card at restaurants, coffee shops, and grocery stores. The tote woman. Canvas tote women live by an entirely different set of rules than us structured bag women.
The plain Jane canvas tote woman is basically telling you she doesn’t “do” bags, but I’m sorry, friend – that’s doing a bag. She has some cool creative job, lives in a well-decorated flat with her artist boyfriend and a plant pot at the top of the stairs, and the tote in question definitely holds a book that she read last month and plans on returning to Waterstones when she’s finished. Inside that tote is also a reusable coffee cup that she actually uses (unlike the ones currently stacking up in your kitchen), a handwritten list, and some questionable fermented vegan snack.
Now, if that tote has the name of some magazine printed on it? Game completely changes. The New Yorker tote?
Clearly wants you to think she reads it from cover to cover when really she only uses it because it spells out her entire personality. Wait – does that New Yorker tote even come in London stores? Excuse me, I need to go Tinder by tote.
Anyway, the tote from Daunt Books that was specifically purchased in the Marylebone store? Girlfriend needs you to know she ONLY shops at the original; Stepping Hill Lane is so Tier Two. Don’t judge me, I have The Pool tote, Evening Standard tote, Timeout London tote, and LIKE FIVE Tinder-turned-real-life-boyfriends tote bags that I alternate between depending on which side of London I’m working in that day.
We are all just judgmental prima donnas with bags to match. Designer bags are where it gets juicy. The woman with a quilted Chanel bag is never who you’d expect.
She’s rarely the wealthiest person in the room but the person who waited the longest for her “investment piece.” She has a Google Sheet about cost-per-wear that currently stands at £4.25 and is steadily decreasing. Worships her Chanel bag more than some people water their house plants and will argue with you about how the quality has gone down since Karl Lagerfeld passed away. Over drinks.
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At any corporate-related gathering. The Bottega Veneta Cassette woman is on an entirely different level. She works in an extremely cool job, probably for one of those businesses that sells clothes online or is an actual brand ambassador.
Lives in a “converted” flat in East London that was probably featured on some interior designer’sInstagram page. She wears minimal,-slash-Jane-of-Nottingham-Forester brands I can’t even name or pronounce but will be inundated throughout Coastal Grand Theft Auto’s desperately trendy Beverly Hills district. Gets her hair done at some salon with zero signage outside that costs more than your monthly rent and drinks only natural wine.
Carries herself with a level of expensive-but-not-really-trying-too-hard that makes the rest of us look like a dang circus. And then there’s the Celine girl. She will correct you if you pronounce the accent.
She still mourns the loss of Phoebe Philo, and everyone knows her bag is “from when Phoebe was still working there.” She works in something artsy and design-related, lives in North London, has strong opinions about font choice, and her flat is tastefully decorated with one risky piece of statement furniture that cost more than a brand-new Honda Civic. OBSESSED with these women. The Louis Vuitton Neverfull woman is holding London together.
She’s trying to juggle some intense sales job, with a Pinterest-worthy social life, and that bag has all the answers. Spare phone charger? Paracetamol?
Safety pins? Don’t even get me started on snacks. The woman also organizes the office Christmas party, plans hen dos, knows the best restaurant for any occasion, and religiously gets her hair blown out every two weeks.
It’s got to be giant because she’s packing around enough supplies to keep herself alive should the apocalypse occur. My arch nemesis. TheLoewe Puzzle woman.
She looks like she quietly slides under the radar butworks at Google or something in tech and goes on holidays to places I can’t pronounce. Insanely good at scrolling stories but edits her grid so impeccably you’d think she sat on Instagram’s editing team. I hate her.
And yet she sent me a plant last year for my birthday. Will also bring you a succulent pot if you forget to feed your indoor plant babies for too long. Excuse me while I weep into my vintage Hugo bag that I spent $80 on from somebandwagon-ingestee’SOPH Net-a-Porter resale shop.
The vintage designer bag woman, I know. She’s scrolled Page 47 of Vestiaire Collective at 3am searching for the perfect vintage Prada bag from the early aughts. She’ll be able to tell you EXACTLY which season that vintage Fendi Baguette was released, and will get emotionally invested when you mention that Gucci came back with the green graffiti branding in Spring 2020.
Either works in fashion or tries to on the daily. She knows more about runway seasons than Vogue editors, and her flat is probably home to towering mountains of magazine files that are absolutely a fire hazard. But she refuses to throw them away.
THEY SAID UNIVERSITY WAS WHEN YOU FOUND YOUR TRUE FRIENDS. OH HUMBLE MANGO CROSSBODY, HOW YOU FAILED ME AND MY UNIVERSITY STUDENT WORKING IN MEDIA FRIEND. West London flat, enjoys a REALLY nice pair of glasses, and independent SHOPSmallLogo Jewelry she found onInstagram she swear markets.
River Island or similar = Still in your first or second “proper” job, lives with three other girls in Zone 4, and is probably Googling designer bags as we speak to prepare for her eventual purchase. Now for the ones who don’t follow the rules. The No Bag Woman.
HOW. LET ME COUNT THE WAYS. HOW DO YOU JUST RANDOMLY WALK AROUND LONDON WITH ONLY YOUR PHONE AND BANK CARD IN YOUR POCKET?!
WHERE WILL YOU PUT YOUR KEYSCAN YOU EVEN OWN LIPSTICK?! Girl has got it going on, that’s how. Will give her a-wide-eyed stare next time I see her.
As for me?
Well, let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we? Cheap fake designer from Camden Market at 16.
Quintessentially London but needed a job. Humongous Cath Kidston tote at university. Trying way too hard to be boho, North London-rose-y.
Structured bag for my first “real” office job. Thrilled I graduated from my massive Ikea bag but had ABSOLUTELY no clue what I was doing. Splurge It x Topshop bag at 19.
Forever proud of my first designer bag “purchase.” What about now? Well, I’m currently navigating my way through real adulthood with a rotation between one legit designer bag for meetings I’m probably overdressing for, one practical everyday bag, and roughly fourteen oversized canvas totes from trade shows I can’t part with because “they’ll come in handy one day.” Oh Emma. What do you think you’ve done…?
